Remember these gadgets from the past? The latest generation of kids don't know of their existence

Here are few gadgets of the past that the latest generation have no memory of.

Technology has evolved at an exponential pace since the internet was first made available to the general public in the form of the World Wide Web in 1990. Brick-like cell phones in their earliest avatars in 80s have given way to the sleek tablets and smartphones of today. Developers are forced to work with tighter and tighter deadlines so that companies do not become irrelevant in the self-perpetuating phenomenon of obsolescence. It comes as no wonder that the children have no idea of the technology of the past, as according to a recent You Gov study that was conducted on 2,000 children. Here are few gadgets of the past that the latest generation have no memory of. (Image: Reuters)

2/9

The survey saw two-thirds of the children not knowing what a floppy disk is. Some of them only seem to remember it as the ubiquitous “save” icon. But floppies were all the rage till the mid-1990s before the advent of Compact disks (CDs). Close to 5 billion such floppy disks were sold across the globe to store data. In contrast, flash drives can now store 2 TB — which is 1.7 million times the storage size of a floppy disk. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

3/9

From its inception in the 1974 up and till its discontinuation in 2012, BBC’s Ceefax was the quickest way to get to know a host of information from all over the world. This included the latest news headlines, match scores of various games and even lottery results. Before the pings of push notifications on smartphone apps, this device was the saviour for those eager to get their latest fix of the news in between radio or television bulletins. However, 86 percent of the children surveyed did not know what a Ceefax was. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

4/9

The pager was a trusty device that was holstered on the hips of working professionals in the 1980s. Simple messages with text and numbers, even voice messages could have been sent via radio antennas. The increasing commercial viability of the cellphone changed all of that in the 1990s, leaving pagers to be remembered only in the history books. Close to 86 percent of the children surveyed were not aware of its existence. However, they are still used in hospitals and emergency services as their no-frills modus operandi made it more efficient to sound off emergencies.(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

5/9

The vinyl record had a similar effect on the availability of the music to the world in the same way the Gutenberg’s press proliferated the written word. Surprisingly, close to three quarters of the children in the survey could identify a vinyl record player. The device made way for the audio cassette players and finally the mp3 digital music format even before the youngest of the children surveyed were even born! The survey noted that listening to music on analog media was seeing a resurgence, especially among the 18-24 year old age group.(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

6/9

The vinyl records met the fate of the floppy disk in the 1970s and gave way to the audio cassette. The cassettes were at one time the most accessible way to listen to popular bands, now classified as “classic rock” up and till when Justin Timberlake was still the lead singer of the boy band “NSYNC.” By the late 90s to the early 2000s, the potential of the internet was also being used to download music, and albums were being burned onto CDs. In the world of iTunes and Youtube, it comes as no surprise that 40 percent of the children surveyed could not identify a cassette.(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

7/9

Before iPads, Power point presentations and other kinds of projectors became the mainstay teaching aids in classrooms, the day-to-day chalk and duster form of instruction was supplemented with the use of overhead projectors. The necessary material, be it text, drawings or figures plotted on the top acetate sheets. Its obsolescence is however set in stone with more than 70 percent of the children in the survey being unable to identify one. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

8/9

Typewriters and the QWERTY layout of the keyboard seem to be one of the few things that have stood the test of time. The layout first caught the fancy of typewriter designers in the 1870s. They are now at the virtual beck and call of the billions of netizens worldwide, making it unsurprising that only 27 percent of the children surveyed were unable to identify the typewriter. The “Courier” format has also become synonymous with the typewriter and film scripts, with one child having described it described it as, “a thing you write movies on”. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

9/9

Before smartphones became everyone’s indispensable technological rectangle, the TV box set, the video cassette recorder and the sturdy plastic boxes of VHS tapes was the staple form of recreation for many households. This was much before Netflix became popular, which was why 37 percent of today’s generation of children did not know what a VHS tape was. It can be safe to say that the squeaky sounds made by the magnetic spool of a VHS tape would no more evoke feelings of nostalgia in the today’s generation of children.(Image: Wikimedia Commons)